#wanted to shape him tomm moore-style..

[oogsterboogster]

This guy again

[elizas-writing]

Animated August, Day 20: Song of the Sea

How in the FUCK have we been sitting on Tomm Moore for so long? Why aren’t we eating his movies up at this point? Give the guy a fucking Oscar already!

In any case, Moore, the same director for The Secret of Kells, is back again with his second film, Song of the Sea; a beautiful adventure with gripping, raw emotion and beautiful interpretations of Irish mythology and folktales. I’m starting to wonder if there’s anything Moore can’t do with another knock out of the park. Let’s take a look at a film which many viewers felt was robbed by the Academy.

Just a short boat ride away from a seaside Irish village, a family lives at a lighthouse on top of a hill. Their happy life suddenly changes when the mother mysteriously vanishes, presumably dying after giving birth to her daugther, Saoirse (SEER-sha). Six years pass, the father is still depressed, Saoirse is mute, and her older brother, Ben, resents her and blames her for their mother’s disappearance. On the night of her birthday, Saoirse finds an old chest with a lovely white coat, and finds herself drawn to the ocean. The coat allows her to turn into a seal in the water, revealing her to be a selkie, a magical shape-shifting creature. The father suddenly sends the children to live with their grandmother on the mainland village, so they may have some normal life without grief constantly overwhelming them. Ben immediately decides to run away and go back home, and Saoirse follows. Along the way, Ben learns of what Saoirse is and that the folktales their mother told him of fairies and spirits are true. On top of which, Saoirse is the key to save the spirit world, but grows weaker without her coat and must hurry back home before she dies or is taken by dark creatures.

Once again, the animation style borrows a lot from Celtic mythology and art with flat, geometric shapes and saturated colors. As The Secret of Kells captured medieval art, Song of the Sea more emulates the look of a children’s bedtime story-- a perfect fit given the main characters’ connection to folktales. It favors dark blues which match for any scene throughout the film. Aside from the fairies and spirits, the character designs are very simplistic while the great detail work pops in the backgrounds. And the spirits are just delightful in how they interact with the kids and do whatever they can to help them, even this seemingly malevolent owl spirit who just wanted to alleviate her son’s grief. It’s a magical world of wonder and danger you just want to see more of in all its splendor. Even though it has a similar slow, atmospheric tone to The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea has a more fleshed-out plot to work with, making way for intense drama, chases, and a race against the clock. And the animation and voice acting carry through each scene with perfect pacing to develop the characters and their dilemmas.

From the plot summary, it sounds like we’re mostly following Saoirse’s self-discovery. She still has sufficient screen time with subtle character changes, but the focus mainly falls on Ben’s grief. He’s stubborn and projects his anger far too much on his younger sister, but as he learns more about his mother and the spirits, the guilt steadily piles on as he has to move on and be a better brother, especially when it comes to passing down the stories he grew up with. It’s really nice to see his attitude slowly change as he remembers how he felt when he was first told these stories, how much more dark and depressing they are now that he’s older, and how similar his experiences with grief are to those folktales.

And Saoirse, despite her sweet demeanor, eventually comes to not take her brother’s shit, and when she want something, she’ll be damn sure he pays attention. Their development from estranged siblings to sacrificing for each other is incredibly well-paced and feels earned when the film reaches the climax. And it ties together amazingly with remembering/discovering cultural roots, connecting with people, learning from the past, and coping when one of your few major connections to your heritage just vanishes from your life. It’s all specific to Irish folklore, but has a ton of universality which anyone can pick up.

Song of the Sea is a film unlike most in the animation world, especially as one of the rare 2D animated movies still being made. It takes a simple premise and juices it up with Irish mythology and a grand commentary on the importance of maintaining and passing down your heritage. It’s a breathtaking and magical visual marvel celebrating the beauty of Irish culture from the stories to the music. But why listen to me go on and on? Experience Song of the Sea for yourself... with tissues on standby.

Day 19 >> Day 20 >> Day 21

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[laura-j-c]

Aliments of Peter Pan Syndrome

Aliments of Peter Pan Syndrome – Power Source (2017), tracing paper, graphite, Photoshop, 1 minute 2 seconds

 Aliments of Peter Pan Syndrome – Tapped (2017), tracing paper, graphite, Photoshop, 1 minute 13 seconds

 Aliments of Peter Pan Syndrome – Connected (2017), tracing paper, graphite, Photoshop, 1 minute 17 seconds

 Aliments of Peter Pan Syndrome (2017) consists of three, minute long animations. Featuring what I describe as fantastical succulent interruptions my drawings interrupt the dull mundane of my domestic suburbia interior. This project is an expansion of my previous project from last semester. By inventing Succulent Morphology these works playfully explore Gen Y’s apparent need to escape everyday reality through an obsession of preternatural worlds.

Following on from my previous project, I continue to explore succulent imagery on photographs of my domestic environment that examines my active obsession for escaping into fantastical literature.

These works are designed using Photoshop to digitally manipulate multiple hand-drawn images over black and white photos of my interior. The layers are animated using Adobe Premiere so the succulents slowly grow out and overtake the space in the photo. After they have grown the succulents will then shrivel up and decay so the image returns to the original black and white interior. The animation then loops back to the start and repeats. An important point from my previous project was I was lacking a critical edge to my work, I aim to address that by having the succulents shrivel up and decay, and have it as a metaphor for moments when dark places can consume one’s life. The animated drawings achieve this by having the succulents’ bright colours on a dull black and white background but then erode to rotten colours and vanish completely.

Why succulents. They are a unique species of plant that look so strange but normal at the same time. As a subject, I use them as a small doorway into the fantastical through the mundanity of suburbia world. They are very resilient and hard to kill, they can grow just about anywhere. It’s like my fantasy obsessiveness, no matter how much people tell me fairies, trolls and werewolves aren’t real it won’t kill my love or search for the fantastical. So, for this project I have invented succulent morphology, the study of the succulents’ exteriors. In choosing a botanical form to be the shape of my fantastical interruptions because plants have a rich foundation for fantasy in which they have magical properties. This is seen in many fairy tales such as The Three Snake-Leaves by Brothers Grimm in which the leaves can return the dead to life (Race Point Publishing, 2013). In Norse mythology Yggdrasill is a magnificent tree that connects all nine realms together (Branston, 1978). Even the seeds contain the source for magic, in the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone he tricks his kidnapped bride into eating pomegranate seeds so even when she leaves the Underworld she will always return to him for a short span of the year (Larsen, 2016). This relates to my animations because plants from these mythologies don’t look unnatural, they are familiar and ordinary but have magic rooted in them. This is also achieved through the animation. Watching the succulents grow and decay has a mesmerising and almost magical feel about them that makes them have an otherworldly atmosphere.

My work deals with my need for the fantastical and escaping from the dull and ordinary, of which I do through literature. In constantly seeking out the preternatural, innocent, spiritual and harmonious way in everyday life. This project is a like a metaphor for my desire of fantasy. Over many years fantasy has taken root in my mind, growing and filling out all the space. There are moments in my life where events and circumstances have stifled that growth and withered it down to nothing but it always flourishes back to life, after lying dormant it sprouts and evolves, swelling into something just as big and beautiful as before.

As a Millennial, we are infamous for being very tech. savvy, rejection of traditional rites of passage into adulthood, and dependence on the internet. Author Sally Bibb accurately describes the aspects of Generation Y in her book Generation Y for Rookies (2014) which illustrates the qualities, personality traits, work ethics and circumstances that have shaped how Millennials have become the way they are; including disregard for hierarchy or authority, rejection of competitive conflict solving, perforation to collaboration, exposure to internet and technology, difficultly job finding (because of unwillingness to work the hours or finding a skill-appropriate position), creative and initiative, and more politically disengaged (Bibb, 2014). I agree with many of these claims but feel some are more subjective than others.

Bibb also mentions in her book the experiences that influenced my generation acts of global terrorism, marriages that result in higher rates of divorce and difficulty in saving money for houses and cars (Bibb, 2014). These events have left many Millennials with a longing to stay a child and never grow up or to escape from reality all together, the Peter Pan Generation. I respond to this through art. I have always wanted to escape back into my childhood, back into the fantasy and as far away from reality as possible.

My work, Aliments of Peter Pan Syndrome, is not unlike George Gessert’s practice as it is the study of botanical exteriors (morphology), the appearance of a plant, Snowy Donkey (2004) is an iris he crossbred and grew until it bloomed. If Gessert did not like the appearance of the flower, he would recycle it and start a new hybrid breed. Because I am exploring morphology, the study of the plant’s exterior – the appearance, I am doing what Gessert is doing which is focusing on how the plant looks. We are both also exploring an invented morphology, he created his own by cross breeding his plants and I’ve created my own through my succulents.

The idea for this project was inspired by Tomm Moore, a filmmaker and animator, after watching many his films, particularly Song of the Sea (2014). The beautiful artistic style and animation form encouraged me to pursue the idea of animating the succulents from my previous work. Initially I had planned to have a very flush, digital finish to my animation style, like some of the styles Moore uses. However, after my previous critic it was suggested that this approach wasn’t appropriate for my subject. The time it would have taken to animate in that style would’ve taken far too long and wouldn’t be done in time. Since I had decided to use hand drawn images I had to look at artists who utilised a similar method such as William Kentridge.

My initial plan for presenting was just to project the animations using projectors onto a wall. After looking Diana Thater practice I realised this approach was as dull and boring as my domestic environment. I was intrigued how she used screens and projections in ways I hadn’t even considered, angling them and projecting them onto the wall and ceiling, clustering screens together in an arrangement. After looking at her work I had wanted to wall mount a series of monitors in a cluster formation, like the growth and clustering of succulents, and have the animations play on loop. But after being introduce to these black plinths which were so good I decided to arrange them on the plinths instead, still following the clustered idea.

This project is a continuation of my exploration into escaping reality through fantasy. I have achieved this in my work by creating three, minute animations featuring fantastical interrupting succulents in my domestic suburbia interior. I have aimed to fix the issues identified in my previous project and expand it.

REFERENCE LIST

Bibb, Sally. 2014. Generation Y for Rookies. LID Publishing. ISBN:9780462099804

Race Point Publishing. 2013. “The Three Snake-Leaves” in The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Page, 60-62. New York, USA.

Branston, Brian. 1978. “Yggdrasill, the World Ash” in Gods & Heroes from Viking Mythology. Page, 31-36. New South Wales, Australia.

Larsen, Kristine. 2016. “The Lessons of Nature in Mythology” in Mythlore. Vol. 34, no. 2, 2016, p. 191+. Expanded Academic ASAP, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=EAIM&sw=w&u=griffith&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA453915650&it=r&asid=4b72e4eea1cfef3007bbe6af0aa15518.

Gessert, George. Snowy Donkey. (2004). Iris seeds, soil, fertiliser, flower pot, water. Dimensions variable.

[elizas-writing]

Animated August, Day 15: The Secret of Kells

The Secret of Kells is another underrated film which often slips under the radar for animation. I remember when I first saw it with a friend, I wasn’t sure what to think of it. I knew it was good, but couldn’t describe what it is that kept me glued to the screen. Now that I saw it again with intent to review, I think I found some potential answers.

In a remote, tightly knit community known as the Abbey of Kells, the monks obsessively build a wall to keep themselves safe from viking attacks. A new refugee named Brother Aidan, the creator of the Book of Iona, arrives in Kells after his home was destroyed and hopes to finish his work. A young boy named Brendan grows curious of the book believed capable to turn darkness into light, and he becomes Aidan’s apprentice in the monastery’s scriptorium. In order to complete the book, Brendan has to venture beyond the walls to the forest to find materials for ink. Along the way he meets a fairy named Aisling (pronounced Ash-ling) who helps him, and he learns of a dark evil living deep in the forest more frightening than any barbarian. Will his new art be the kind which will bring light back into his world?

One of the major sources of inspiration for this film was Studio Ghibli, and it definitely shows in its storytelling which relies more on character and atmosphere than a three act structured plot. And director Tomm Moore wanted to create something like that but with Celtic mythology and art. The animation follows a medieval style of flat, geometric shapes and bright colors with little to no third dimension. It looks simple at first, but if you look close enough, you’ll see all the wonderfully meticulous details. It also uses a lot of thick lines to make it look like a stained glass window. it’s just mesmerizing, and I’ve never seen anything else like it.

Even though there are impending threats like vikings and dark spirits, there’s more focus on the Book of Iona as a beacon of hope so not every day is lived in fear. But it’s very vague on what exactly makes it so wonderful, leaving it to audience interpretation on the power, beauty and appreciation of art. All you have are the characters’ reactions to go off of. The story’s more interested in the development of the craft than necessarily the end results. Constantly practicing, finding new materials, learning to look for details, etc. It’s really fascinating to see Brendan’s growing dedication and courage to learn more, even at the risk of disobeying his uncle. His friendship with Aisling is really sweet as they bridge between Catholicism and Paganism to rediscover cultural roots. And all of his uncle’s built up regrets at the end just break my heart-- Brendan Gleeson is just amazing as this stern abbot more obsessed with safety than anything else. I don’t think the characters are as strong as the run time should allot, but the simplicity of the animation and story are enough to keep my attention.

Honestly, it’s hard to find much to say without spoiling too much. It’s one of those films you have to experience for yourself to understand the symbolism. If you can find the trailer, you’ll get an idea if this is up your alley. It takes a couple watches to understand, but it’s such a beautiful and delightful film for anyone of any age to enjoy.

Day 14 >> Day 15 >> Day 16

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